A Dash Through Hogwarts
by Elfmistress
Summary: Oneshot. Hogwarts is attacked by Voldemort. The story follows Harry's journey through Hogwarts. Takes place after HBP. Impliedmild slash.


-1Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, own Harry Potter. If I did, I would be an insanely rich Scottish lady by the name of J.K. Rowling, instead of just a slightly insane girl from Kansas.

Harry panted as he leapt from one end of a moving staircase to another. He skidded for a moment, almost going over, before regaining traction and taking off again.

Just a few minutes earlier, Harry had been sitting on the edge of the Astronomy tower, looking out over the Forbidden Forest. True, it had been after curfew, but the seventeen year old hadn't been able to stay in his dormitory that night. Over the past year, he'd seen too much, had done too much, to ever be able to fit in with the four other boys with whom he shared a room with. Indeed, it was a miracle that Hogwarts was even open after the death of its headmaster, the Death Eater attack, and the subsequent betrayal of the Potions professor, Severus Snape the year prior.

Then, in a stroke of brilliance, the Ministry of Magic changed the age of majority from 17 to 18, forcing Harry to remain at his aunt's house, unable to search for Voldemort's horcruxes as planned. And, due to the upheaval in the Order of the Phoenix, Harry had to spend the entire summer at the Dursley's for the first time in five years, for the Weasley's had been unable to house him. The only good thing about the summer was that there had been few Death Eater attacks.

Overall, it had not been a good summer.

And now, just three weeks into his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, he was sitting on the edge of the Astronomy tower, looking out over the Forbidden Forest.

He was just sitting there, enjoying the cool breeze and silence, and thinking dark thoughts, when he suddenly looked up at the sky. He didn't know what made him look up, whether it was a change in the air or an owl hooting in fright, just that he _did_ look up, and what he saw frightened him.

For, barely disconcernable against the black, black night was a mass of flying black bodies, blocking out the stars. And, from the middle of the mass, a pair of red eyes glowed beneath a dark hood.

Then a voice boomed out, "Harry Potter! We meet again." Harry, until that point, had been staring at the Death Eaters in shock. At those words, he leapt to his feet and took off running towards the stairs, ignoring the rest of Voldemort's rant, dodging the red light of a spell.

He was almost halfway to the stairs when suddenly a boot shot out of nowhere and kicked the Boy-Who-Lived in the back, sending him sailing the rest of the way to his destination. "That's for nearly killing my son," an angered voice, which Harry recognized to be Lucius Malfoy, said.

Harry scrambled to his feet, and took off running down the stairs. As he made it to the first landing, he heard the Dark Lord say, "Potter is mine! Crucio!" which was followed by shrieks of pain.

As Harry stumbled down to the next landing, he glanced back to see a veritable flood of Death Eaters. It seemed Voldemort had pulled out all the stops for this raid.

Once Harry reached the base of the tower he began shouting at the top of his voice "Death Eaters! Death Eaters in the castle!" Teachers and students began emerging from their rooms to see what all the commotion was.

When the dark-haired boy reached the staircase, he slid to a stop. "Bloody fucking hell." It seemed that even the staircases were working against him tonight. They were all positioned to that in order to go anywhere, he would have to jump and climb to the next staircase. He stood there, indecisive. A Crucio that flew by his left ear sped up his thinking processes. Taking a few steps back, he then ran towards the edge and jumped, just barely making the 15 foot drop and then nearly falling over the other side as he skidded. Harry glanced back up to see if any Death Eaters were following him and almost laughed. They were all sliding to a halt right before the edge. "Potter!" One yelled out, shaking his fist. Just then, a straggling Death Eater bumped into the group, sending the one who yelled out to fall. His scream could be heard before it suddenly stopped he hit the floor with a sickening crunch.

A small "oops" could be heard from the rear of the group. Harry gave the group a cheeky grin before running off towards the next staircase. As soon as he had jumped onto the next staircase, the one before began moving towards the Death Eaters.

'Oh, now that's not fair,' Harry thought.

Minutes later, he dashed into a side passage in an attempt to escape the masked men who were catching up to him. Relieved, he stood there bent over, panting, in an attempt to catch his breath.

Once his second wind had been gained, he trotted down the unused passage that he had found. Twenty minutes later found Harry still trotting down the corridor, although at a considerably faster pace.

As he dashed through the twisting and winding corridor, he dodged curses and sent hexes back at the Death Eaters who had found him.

When a particularly vicious curse grazed his hip, he spun around and hid behind a dusty statue. He racked his brain for a suitable curse. Coming up with one he yelled out, "Sectumsempra!" and watched as it hit one of the Death Eaters, opening a bloody gash across the arm. A tall Death Eater, with lanky, greasy hair, in fact.

Ripping off his white mask, Snape healed his arm and bit out, "Potter! What the hell! You can't use my own curses against me!"

"Yeah, well, it's your own fault. You really shouldn't leave your things lying around Snape. By the way, thanks for all the Potions help last year. Couldn't have done it without you," Harry replied, laughing.

"Why you insolent, little…" Snape began, only to be interrupted by Harry. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You really need to get some new insults. And, while this has been fun, I must run," he said, taking off running down the endless corridor. Just as he was about to disappear around a bend in the hall, Snape flung out his wand and a bolt of light flew towards Harry, hitting him and causing a cut across Harry's upper chest. He clamped his arm across his chest to try and stop the bleeding. As he rounded the corner, he yelled, "Hey! This was a new robe!"

Once he was a safe distance away, he healed the slash across his chest. Taking a moment to breath, he looked across the hall and narrowed his eyes. 'If I'm not mistaken, I do believe I've seen that particular patch of mold before,' he thought.

As he was staring at the wall, the Bloody Baron glided through the wall and then turned down the hall. Harry ran after him.

"Sir! Um…Mr. Bloody Baron!" he called. The ghost slowly turned around and waited. In a gush of words, Harry said, "Sir, there are Death Eaters in the castle and I'm stuck in this corridor and I can't find a way out and can you help me, sir?"

Silently the ghost pointed down the hall and said, "Next to the statue of Gretchen the Harlot."

Harry waited a moment for more, but when no more information was coming, he took off saying "Thank you, sir!" over his shoulder.

The blood-stained ghost stared after the boy, then raised a bottle of Firewhiskey and took a drink. The liquid splashed onto the floor. "No problem, Larry," he said, drunkenly.

When Harry reached the statue of Gretchen the Harlot, he found that it was the same statue that he had hidden behind earlier, minus the head and shoulders, which lay in dust around it. 'Hmm. Snape must have been a little bit angry earlier,' he thought.

Looking everywhere around the statue, all Harry found was blank wall. 'That stupid damn Slytherin ghost lied to me! That'll teach the stupid, gullible Gryffindor about trusting Slytherins,' the boy thought. Just then a violently violet bolt of magic flew by his head. He slowly turned around to find himself face-to-face with ten Death Eaters.

"Hey guys," he said, slowly backing up towards the wall. They all just smirked menacingly. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to talk about this?"

Silence.

"Guess not," Harry replied.

Just as he was raising his wand to fire off a spell, he hit a protruding stone in the wall. When he ran into it, it sank into the wall, revealing an opening unnoticed by the people in front of it. At the sudden lack of support from behind, Harry fell through the opening. Onto the third staircase from the bottom of the Great Hall, in fact. He watched in wonder as the wall closed in front of him. 'I love Hogwarts,' he thought.

On the other side of the wall, Snape had finally caught up with the larger group. "What are you doing here? Where's the Potter boy?" he asked.

One of the masked persons pointed at the wall.

"Unless the boy's turned himself invisible, there's nothing there," he informed them.

"No sir, he somehow opened the wall and went through it," the one who pointed said.

Snape let out a growl of frustration. "Well then, search the damn wall!"

"What are you going to be doing, sir?" an imputent Death Eater asked.

Snape turned to stare at him. After a moment, he answered, "I? What am I going to be doing? I will be with the Dark Lord, attempting to fix your mistake, you incompetent twit." he then spun around and left, robes billowing behind him in true Snape-like fashion. Before he disappeared entirely, he flung a Crucio behind him and relished the screams of pain before fading into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Harry had managed to get to the Great Hall, relatively unscathed, where the teachers and students were milling about in confusion.

"Potter!"

Harry spun around to see Headmistress McGonagall stalking towards him, along with most of the professors and two of his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

"Mr. Potter, what on earth is going on?" the new headmistress asked.

"Voldemort and Death Eaters…in Hogwarts," he panted.

"Yes, so we've heard, but we have yet to see any sign of them," another professor informed him.

"Because they've been following me from the Astronomy tower," Harry replied, slightly recovered from his run, "They'll likely be here…"

Just then a loud "Bang" resounded throughout the hall as the doors were blown off.

"…any minute," Harry finished, unheard.

Through the opening, the terror of the wizarding world, stepped Lord Voldemort and his band of merry Death Eaters.

The Dark Lord paused, gazing around the room with a smirk on his lips. He was much changed from the snakeman who was brought back three years earlier. The man standing before them looked much like he had in his youth, perhaps about the age of 25. The only thing that marked him as different were his eyes. They were still the ruby-red from when he'd been reborn.

Gazing about the room, his eyes paused on Harry for a brief moment before coming to rest on McGonagall.

Not able to take the silence any longer, she bit out, "What do you want?"

Waiting a moment before answering, just to watch the steam rising from her ears, he said, "Why, what any evil, Dark Lord wants: riches beyond my wildest dreams, a nice job, a new car, a lovely wife, 2.2 children, and a white picket fence. Oh yes, and let's not forget-world peace." His smirk then deepened until it could almost, _almost_ be called a grin.

"Why you no good, evil bastard!" she all but shrieked.

Putting a hand upon his chest, he said, with an innocent and hurt look upon his face, "I know you can't be talking about me! Why, I'm as pure as spun sugar. You must have been talking about Snape. No? Must have been Malfoy then."

McGonagall gripped her wand tighter and ground her teeth together. Sparks flew out the end of the wand. "What can I do to get you to leave?" she asked.

Thinking a moment, he tapped a finger against his chin, then replied, "Well, you could give me Potter, I guess."

"What do you want him for?" Hermione asked, clutching the boy in question's arm.

"Why, to torture and kill him, of course."

At the shocked look on everyone's faces, he rolled his eyes and asked, "Well, are you going to hand him over or not? No? Well, then I guess we have no choice…"

Raising his wand at the group before him, Voldemort flung out a curse and the battle began.

Dodging the bolts of light, which were curiously not green, Harry managed to sneak around to the doors of the Great Hall. Pausing a moment, he checked that no one had seen him. Everyone was currently involved in fighting someone else. Great. Turning back around, he was almost halfway across the Entrance Hall when he heard someone yell, "There he is! He's getting away!" and then the pounding of running feet. Rolling his eyes at the person's originality, Harry raced across the hall and flung himself down the dungeon steps.

After running flat out for what seemed like hours, harry stopped and leaned against the wall, panting for air. Looking up, he surveyed his surroundings. Looking down one side of the corridor, then turning his head to the other end, he saw the same thing. Pitch-freaking-black nothingness. Taking in a breath, he sighed and banged his head on the wall behind him. Great. He was lost. Again. And this time in the bloody damn dungeons. His life was just getting better and better. He was afraid to cast a Lumos, afraid that it would just point out his location to the Death Eaters.

Sighing once more, he decided to just flip a coin to decide which way to go, when he heard something down the hall. With one hand trailing along the wall, and he was _not_ going to ask about that slimy stuff on his hands, he crept down the hall, trying to find the noise.

As he neared what appeared to be a junction of two hallways, Harry could see a faint, green light emitting from a side corridor and the faint whisper of voices.

Once he reached the corner, he peered around the edge and saw three Death Eaters standing around something. Curious, he tried to learn more.

"No, idiot. You have to tie it in a loop," one said.

"Like this?" the second asked.

"Yeah, now stick it in here," one answered.

The third then spoke up, "No, no, no. you're doing it all wrong."

Harry stared at the scene before him, mouth agape. He could hardly believe what he was seeing.

One Death Eater was kneeling on the floor, another was on all fours, and in front of both of them was the third. Then a loud groan emerged from the group, followed by a "There all done!"

'What on earth are they doing?' Harry thought.

He got his answer not a moment later, when they all stood up. There, lying at their feet was a rope. On the ground, one end had been tied into a loop. The rope then trailed up to the ceiling, over a hook and back about ten feet to come to a halt behind a statue. Lying in the center of the loop was a cupcake.

"Now, we need to make a trail of these cupcakes out into the main hall," one Death Eater said.

"I don't know Ed, are you sure he'll follow them here?" asked another.

"Of course Bob, he's a growing boy and they just love their sweets," the first one, Ed, replied, "He'll follow the cupcakes here and when he steps into the rope to get the last one, we'll yank on the rope and catch him. We'll be the Dark Lord's favorites for bringing him the Potter brat."

'Oh for the love of Merlin,' Harry thought, 'What do they think I am, a rabbit to be caught in such a lame trap? That or a pig. Hmm. That's how we tricked Crabbe and Goyle in second year, maybe these two geniuses are their parents.'

Sighing, he stepped into the light where they could see him. The third Death Eater, who had remained for the most part silent, said, "Hey. That's the Potter boy."

The other two spun around and saw Harry. They stared at him a moment before Ed said, "But we haven't laid out the cupcakes yet."

Harry rolled his eyes and stunned the three. "Idiots. And I don't even like cupcakes."

Then, hearing footsteps, he took off down the hall. Followed by Snape yelling, "Potter!" and a red light which bounced off the wall.

Dodging into a side corridor, he ran smack dab into something hard and unresisting.

"Ow."

Before he could move away, he felt arms encircle him and pull him closer to the person. Looking up he saw a pair of red eyes, which came closer and closer as the pair's lips meet in a kiss.

Pulling away due to lack of air, Harry said breathlessly, "Hi Tom. I missed you."

"Hello Harry. And I missed you, too," Lord Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, replied.

"So, how's your visit been?" the Dark Lord asked as they started walking down the hall.

"Oh, you know: 'When are you going to kill You-Know-Who, Harry?' or 'How's the horcrux hunting going?' You know same old, same old," the young man replied.

"Yes, it seems like they've been very mean to you."

"Oh, they have. And speaking of mean. Severus was very rude and upsetting towards me. He even ruined my new robes. I almost cried," Harry said.

Tom snorted, "I'll be sure to Crucio him later."

"You do that."

"And did you have to make the raid seem so real. I was scared there for a moment," Harry complained, "I mean, I know you had to make it seem real so you could 'kidnap' me, but…"

"Harry," Tom interrupted.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

They walked in silence for a minute before coming to the side corridor, which was inhabited by a trio of unconscious Death Eaters. Tom turned to look down at Harry, one eyebrow raised in askance.

"You know, you really need to start screening you minions for intelligence. These three geniuses were going to lead me in here with a trail of cupcakes and then trap me with that rope. Which isn't even hidden! I mean, come on!"

"Indeed, we may have to…do something about that," the Dark Lord replied.

"Yes. And Snape. We have to do something about him too! And Malfoy!" Harry said, bouncing down the hall.

"Now Harry, you love them and you know it," he said, eyeing the energetic boy warily. "Are you sure you didn't have any of that frosting?"

"Yep. I'm sure," the Boy-Who-Lived replied, pausing just inside the Entrance Hall to wait.

While waiting for Voldemort to catch up with him, he looked around, amazed at the lack of sound. What he saw surprised him. Everyone, and I mean everyone. Well, except for Snape. And Malfoy. Okay, almost everyone was looking at Harry and Voldemort in shock. Death Eaters, students, teachers, members of the Order, even the ghosts were standing as though frozen.

Harry giggled.

"Harry! What are you doing! Kill him!" Mrs. Weasley screeched.

Harry looked back at Tom, confused. "Why would I want to do that?" he asked.

"B-because…the Prophesy," Hermione stuttered.

"Oh!" the black-haired boy said, understanding dawning, "You mean all that stuff about 'the power the Dark Lord knows not' and 'either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…' and blah blah blah?"

Everyone nodded.

"I've already done all that stuff."

Hermione's eyes looked like they were about to fall out of the sockets, they were bulging so much. "Obviously not. He's still standing there! Alive and well!"

Sighing, Harry looked back at Tom, who moved to stand next to the Boy-Who-Lived and placed an arm around his waist.

"The power he knows not-I was able to forgive him for all the wrongs he's done: killing my parents, trying to kill me, torturing Muggles…all of it. As for the part about neither shall exist while the other still lives. We weren't living before; we were existing, just…surviving. Now that we've fallen in love, we can't live without the other."

Turning to Tom, he wrapped his arms around the older man's neck and pulled him down for a kiss. When they surfaced a few minutes later due to oxygen deprivation, Harry whispered against Tom's lips, "Take me home, my dear."

Smiling, Tom released Harry from his embrace, only to grab hold of his hand. "Of course, darling." With a nod to the Death Eaters, they all moved towards the doors of Hogwarts.

"Wait! Harry! What does this mean?" McGonagall asked, running after them.

Pausing, Harry turned back towards her, "'Mean?' Why, my dear professor, it means that the war's over. Go and live the rest of your life in happiness and peace. I certainly intend to."

Turning back around, he rejoined Tom and the others as they made their way to the Apparation point. As Tom took hold of both of Harry's hands so that he could Apparate the both of them, Harry looked towards Snape and grinned mischievously.

"Hey, Severus. Just so you know, you owe me a new robe."

And before Snape could do anything, the Dark Lord and the Boy Who Lived disappeared.


End file.
